The networked computing environment (e.g., cloud computing environment) is an enhancement to the predecessor grid environment, whereby multiple grids and other computation resources may be further enhanced by one or more additional abstraction layers (e.g., a cloud layer), thus making disparate devices appear to an end-consumer as a single pool of seamless resources. These resources may include such things as physical or logical computing engines, servers and devices, device memory, storage devices, among others.
As more diverse computing workloads and services are delivered in a cloud computing environment, challenges are presented when attempting to ensure entitlement for usage of any given software product. Business entities may face risks when accessing software products without verifying their right to use and/or with limited controls on usage. In traditional computing configurations, a consumer may license computing software products and execute them on a computing infrastructure. However, in a cloud computing environment, where the computing infrastructure may be owned and managed by one or more third-party service providers, the transfer of new or existing software product entitlements into this domain for use by the licensee is constrained by the lack of federated identify management systems. As such, challenges may exist with respect to ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions of extant software licenses.